Can I specify my product to be sold in Fractional Quantities?

Yes you can!

A feature that's unique to Shift4Shop is the ability to configure and sell your products in fractional quantities as needed. For example, maybe you sell networking and wiring components and you want to give your customers the ability to buy custom lengths of wiring. Perhaps you sell fabrics and you need to allow for specific lengths of material. With Shift4Shop, it's easy to set this up.

Step 1: Add your product

First, you must add a product to your store. This article will assume you are already know how to add a product to your store. However, if you are not familiar with the process, please look at our knowledge base articles that detail the process of adding a product. 

Step 2: Advanced Tab

Now that you've added your product, you're ready to designate fractional quantities for the product. This will be done on the product's Advanced tab under the "Price and Quantity Options" section.

There are three separate situations which you can use for fractional quantities:

• Open Fractional Quantities
  Where your shopper can enter any fractional quantity that they'd like.
• Limited Fractional Quantities
  Where you shopper can enter any fractional quantity that they'd like, but the store will round them up to the next nearest fraction specified by you.
• Merchant Specified Fractional Quantities
  Where the shopper can select only the pre-defined fractional quantities that you specify as the store owner.

Below are the basic settings for each of these:

Open Fractional Quantities

The easiest method to implement for fractional quantities, is Open Fractional Quantities. This means your customer can choose any fraction of the product they'd like.

After adding your product in Step 1, proceed to the product's Advanced tab and look for the setting labeled "Max. Qty."

To the right of the "Max. Qty." settings, you will see a checkbox labeled "Allow fractional qty." Marking this checkbox will allow the product to use any fractional quantities.

How it will work

By simply marking the fractional quantity checkbox, the product can now be ordered in any fractional amount by your customer.

Limited Fractional Quantities

Rather than allowing any fractional quantity to be used, you might need to have specific fractional amounts used where the customer can only choose whole, half or quarterly amounts. For example, instead of allowing a customer to choose 1.3 yards of fabric, you want to automatically round them up to 1.5 yards to make your inventory easier to maintain.

To do this, go to the product's Advanced tab, and look for the setting labeled "Min. Qty."

In the Min Qty field, you will specify the base fractional quantity you'd like to use. For example, if you want to limit the quantities to quarterly amounts, you'd specify 0.25 in this field. (or 0.5 for half fractional)

Then, to limit this as the base fraction, place a mark in the checkbox labeled "Allow only multiples"

How it will work

By specifying a minimum quantity for the product in fractions, you are configuring the product to only allow that fraction as the absolute minimum that can be ordered. However, by designating the setting to accept only multiples of that minimum, you are further controlling how the fractional quantity will work. In other words, if the minimum quantity is 0.5 and you allow multiples of 0.5, your customers will be able to specify only multiples of that fraction. (0.5)

Merchant Specified Fractional Quantities

In some cases, you might need to explicitly state to your customers which fractional quantities will be allowed for the product. For example, perhaps your product comes in pre-packaged quantities and you want to display the available product amounts accordingly.

To do this, go to the product's Advanced tab, and turn on the "Allow fractional qty" checkbox as described already. Then, look for the field labeled "Qty Options:" and enter your individual fractional quantities here.

How it will work

Now, when purchasing the product, your customer will be presented with a drop-down menu specifying the individual amounts available for purchase.